Some seem to think he can be, and there’s reason to assume this, as he is a superb passer of the ball, and a lot of chance creation is passing. To more accurately answer this question though, it’s important to look at what creators and creators-in-chief have in common.
There are many aspects of chance creation that a midfielder can affect. Central midfielders rarely affect chance creation as directly as Kevin De Bruyne, but there are other metrics to indicate a player that has the tendency to do this. Let’s look closely at passes completed into the penalty area. This metric is used because it is likely the last pass before a shot is taken. Passes into the final third and progressive passes are good passing metrics, but for ball progression.
It should first be noted that passes into the penalty area have to be measured against total completed passes, as the more opportunity a player has to make a pass, the more opportunity he has to pass the ball into the box (18-yard box). According FBref, Looking at several high-end creators in the league something stands out, Fernandes, De Bruyne and Trent Alexander-Arnold all average more than 2.4 passes into the penalty area per 90 minutes.